So Sebastian Markis editor of the online black & white photography magazine Monovisions contacted me to do an interview for his publication, quote:"We admire your work and we think it fits perfectly with essence of our publication." - your dam right flattery's gonna get you everywhere!

Mono vision is a great publication, full of inspiration from long past to up and coming photographers, as their byline states "Your everyday source of b&w inspirations", so I really do suggest you bookmark this one and use it to top up your creative juices, may your mojo bottle never be empty!

Thought I'd share with you a lavender shoot I went on last weekend, at Lordington Farm near Chichester, West Sussex.

Although black & white is normally my first choice, it would be a crime not to post a colour version, something I sadly cant share with you is the smell and constant humming of the bees, it truly is quite a special place.

Tech Stuff: BW110 10 stop nd + Lee 0.6 nd 2 stop +Lee 0.6 nd grad 2 stop, ISO100, f22 - this little stack of filters gave me 10mins which was handy because although the pics don't show it, the farm is only open for a few days a year and was quite busy, so the long exposure got rid of most of the people, except the die hard butterfly & bee watchers.

I've put a link to the farms site above for directions, just click on "Lordington Farm"

Every now and then something different comes along, this is one of those things.

Miggo is a protective camera strap, click on the image to take you to their kickstarter site.

Quite often rather than lug around all my kit I'll just stick on a lens and pop my DSLR in my "man" bag (it is manley, honest), however something I not very good at is keeping my Nikon away from my keys, I think this may be the answer to protecting my kit.

It's been a while since I posted anything to the blog, so apologies for that.

I shot this the other week at Eastbourne and if your interested here's a little behind the scenes look shot with the Iphone and edited through instagram to give it a bit more impact.

I've stared using Instagram for my iphone colour shots, I seem to have so many places online to post stuff, but when it came to sharing these little snaps I had no place for them but Instagram seems to fit just nicely.

Got invited to post to ND Magazine, not only is it a another place to share online it's also got some interesting articles and interviews.

I particularly like the layout, very simple and easy to use, they seem to be having something of a growth spurt at the moment with new content being added daily, along with the familiar names you find on Flickr, G+, 500px etc there are also some big hitters, with the likes of Levin, Lange, Brandt etc included in the mix, which I like.

Not the easiest of shots, the wind was
gusting over 30mph right to left and the incoming wash traveled the whole
distance of these cobbles with each wave.

Cobblestone

Ive tried to shoot this location at Langney Point in Eastbourne on the
UK's south coast a few times, it need the right combination of tide
and a rough sea, but not to the extent that I risked being swept away,
or that the camera shook too much in the wind, Saturdays conditions were
quite favourable.

Another from that day!

Behind the scenes.

And for those who are interested , here's a little behind the scenes shot.

It wasn't until after I'd set up the tripod & filters that I noticed this face - concentrating too much on fitting the scene in to a 2:1 crop, and having the shoreline enter from the bottom left corner.Composition is important but you can miss the little things.

Recently it's not been great for any long exposure work, a bit too bright with featureless sky's, so I've been popping a 4" crystal ball I picked up on Ebay in my bag and experimenting with it, using my 50mm f1.4 to loose the background and getting in close to capture the main body of image within the crystal (which it turns out is surprisingly sharp).

The photo's below are a single image, however I've taken the area in the image seen through the crystal and flipped it on it's head which seems to work better and the overall effect was more like what I wanted to achieve, rather than leaving you looking at a blurred background and upside down focal point.

Dungeness situated on Kent’s south coast in the south of England is well worth a visit, dominated by its two nuclear power plants the area is home to a wealth of photo subjects. I’ve been there several times and this is a selection of what I came away with from Saturdays little treck.

The set up!

The sound mirrors where built around 1930 these were the predecessors before radar designed to pick up the sound of enemy aircraft from over the English Channel and were purposely placed in remote areas to cut down on external noise.

A friend lent me his fathers 1935 Leica mk2, this piece of history had formally been owned by a reporter for the Daily Express so had done the rounds.

You forget just how much is done for you "in camera" so with each shot it's, set the asa (once), pull out the lens, use a light meter, estimate the distance, set the shutter speed, set the aperture, wind on the film, and shoot.

Anyway I decided to run a little test to see just what was achievable and unachievable with two cameras 78 years apart.

For the Leica I used Ilford FP4 125iso b&w film, and for the post process on both it was Lightroom 3.

After b&w conversion in LR3, I gave the leica images a little noise filtration and cropped the IPhone images to roughly the same, then some minor vignette, contrast and levels on both.

Although by no means a scientific experiment the results were quite interesting and the smoother less detailed shots from the Leica I preferred.

Has photography really advanced that much, we still the same light source, that big bright one in the sky and although gear is far better technically , is that always so important?

So I spent last Saturday with a new indie/rock band from Brighton, Igloo, to shoot some promo shots for their website, flyers, demo's etc.

The ideas for the shots were left open, they wanted to include some long exposure work, so that was fun, and Brighton is such a great location for just walking and shooting, they're a nice bunch of guys and I wish them good luck in the future.

Here's a gallery of what we made, if you want to find out more about Igloo you can link them at the bottom of this page.

Not a spectacular image, but one I enjoyed making. I've spent most of my
free time during December & January doing long over due building
and decorating works to the house, so after knocking out the fireplace
this morning I afforded myself a couple of hours on the beach.(Who's
the prat in the hat balancing on rocks with a tripod, camera & bag ,
while the surf crashes around him, when it's 0ºC by the English
channel), it's me dodging decorating!